


Stronger

by TenSpencerRiedPlease



Series: IronPanther Plotbunnies [8]
Category: Black Panther (2018), Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Amnesia, BAMF T'Challa (Marvel), Humor, I Don't Even Know, I just wanted to write an amnesia thing, Minor Shuri/ Rhodey, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, don't expect this to be medically accurate, honestly this is the obligatory amnesia AU, i only read the freaking wiki page ok, it doesn't need total medical accuracy, it's a damn one shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-14
Updated: 2016-11-14
Packaged: 2018-08-30 23:22:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8553700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TenSpencerRiedPlease/pseuds/TenSpencerRiedPlease
Summary: Everything was new to him but the more Tony learned about himself the less he wanted to know.He finds out he’s a famous inventor and business man, which he thought was awesome at first because it meant his life would be well documented. Then he discovered YouTube and everything went downhill from there. After watching almost two hours of videos of himself he just couldn’t sit there and watch it anymore. He didn’t understand how he could be so callus, so cruel. More than that he didn’t understand how he could possibly have friends let alone a long-standing stable marriage to someone who has proven himself to be a great person thus far.





	

**Author's Note:**

> To be clear in this AU Tony doesn't have the arc reactor, though he had it at one point. He didn't become Iron Man either because I didn't feel like heroes. What would have been his freakout in IM2, timeline wise for this fic, would have led to him having it removed instead of it poisoning him. But he still did the alcoholic thing, which abruptly ended when T'Chaka died and Tony realized he needed to get his shit together to help T'Challa (whom I peg as having met him the year before after he came back from Afghanistan). 
> 
> So now that I've sorted that, warnings for some mentions of torture, but I think that's everything. If not let me know and I'll add it in.

****

When Tony wakes up Rhodey, T’Challa, and Pepper all sigh in relief. It’s a short-lived relief though because Tony frowns at Rhodey and asks, “who the hell are you?” For a moment they’re all silent, perhaps thinking that this was some sort of bad joke on Tony’s part- it did seem like something he would do- but Tony remains confused.

“James Rhodes?” Rhodey eventually answers, his voice going up at the end as if that was a question though it was not. “We’ve been friends for like twenty five years, man.” They look at each other for a few long seconds but Tony looks no less confused after several moments pass.

“Well I have no damn clue who you are. Or the redhead,” he adds before looking over to the other side of his bed to T’Challa. “I have no clue who you are either, but I’d like to,” he says, grinning saucily.

T’Challa laughs softly for a moment despite the sharp jab of pain he felt at Tony not remembering him. “The good news is that we’re married, so you already know me well,” he says.

Tony’s face lights up and that pain in T’Challa’s chest gets a little worse. “Really? I must have some seriously good luck because you are _hot_.” It might have been a compliment if Tony even knew who he was.

*

Everything was new to him but the more Tony learned about himself the less he wanted to know. At first it was fine, Rhodey had a great sense of humor despite being stiff, Pepper was the non-nonsense type but he could tell she cared, and T’Challa seemed a little distant but he also had no idea who the poor guy was. Tony figured this all had to be a little traumatizing for someone who has been married to their partner for seven years to suddenly not remember anything about them. He wondered where T’Challa was from- he didn’t recognize the accent- but he didn’t want to ask either. Whenever he asked basic things like that everyone cringed.

So instead he took to finding whatever he could on the Internet. The first thing he learned was that he was extremely good with electronics- he easily relearned all of that information and remembered a few designs he had been working on. Without the context of why the numbers were important, though, they were a little useless. He writes them all down anyways just in case they were useful later. The second thing he learns upon sticking his name in a search engine was that people seemed to care about him more than they should. There were hundreds of thousands of articles outlining the car accident he was in that left him with an amnesia. That had explained why his leaving the hospital had been such an ordeal though he wondered why no one said anything. Maybe they thought he couldn’t handle it or something, which only makes him wonder more about his previous mental state.

He sifts through the useless bits of information quickly, and then finds out he’s a famous inventor and business man, which he thought was awesome at first because it meant his life would be well documented. Then he discovered YouTube and everything went downhill from there.

When the front door of his admittedly very large house opens he sits there for a moment before padding off to the foyer. T’Challa looks up when he sees him there and the almost hopeful look on his face hurts to look at. “I think we need a divorce,” he says, flinching hard when T’Challa reels back like Tony just slapped him.

“ _What_?” he asks, bringing his hand to his chest and pressing it to his heart like it would make the blow of Tony’s words softer or something.

“I’m a total jackass, you deserve better. Why do you even like me? I don’t like me very much; I’m a self-obsessed arrogant douchebag, what is there to love?” After watching almost two hours of videos of himself he just couldn’t sit there and watch it anymore. He didn’t understand how he could be so callus, so cruel. More than that he didn’t understand how he could possibly have friends let alone a long-standing stable marriage to someone who has proven himself to be a great person thus far. There had been a weird shortage of videos of him and T’Challa too- which was probably more evidence of his being an asshole. Clearly he was like ashamed of the poor guy or something and he couldn’t see why. T’Challa has been nothing but supportive and nice since he got out of the hospital, obviously he was a good person.

T’Challa, oddly, relaxes at Tony’s explanation. “What did you watch?” he asks as if that mattered.

“YouTube videos, why? Would that really make a difference?” he asks somewhat bitterly. With what he saw he didn’t really _want_ to remember who he was if who he was sucked.

“Come with me,” T’Challa says, walking off into the house. Tony follows him mostly out of curiosity. T’Challa looks determined and Tony wanted to know what he was looking to prove, especially because he didn’t think T’Challa would be able to prove anything. He leads Tony to the back of the house and down a flight of stairs Tony hadn’t realized were there, leading to a large space that looked like some kind of workshop. He looks around at the space, at the things that were scattered around, the messy desk, the car in the corner with the hood left open and tools surrounding it like he had left the space with his work unfinished. T’Challa looks strangely neat in such a messy space.

T’Challa walks over to the center of the room and does something that makes a bunch of lights go on at the same time. Tony jumps a little at the surprise but looks around, frowning at the… holograms? T’Challa walks over to the one sitting in the middle of the room, a little circle of light that looked pretty irrelevant to him, and… Tony isn’t sure _how_ he managed to expand the thing but what looked like a small ball of light expands to encompass the room. He then recognizes that the ball of light was actually a structure- an atomic structure that didn’t look familiar. “What is this?” he asks, looking around at the structure.

“This is an element you made. It does not exist in nature, this is something you invented out of almost nothing but your own mind,” T’Challa says, a tinge of pride coloring his tone. Tony can feel it too, the way T’Challa was clearly proud of his ability to make things.

And… and inventing an element is pretty impressive- “but this doesn’t make me any less of a jackass. So I’m smart, what’s the use in that if I’m a horrible person?” he asks. Whatever his intelligence had to offer the world would be useless if he was awful in every other way- then he’d be doing more harm than good even with his not being completely evil.

T’Challa laughs softly, “a dilemma you have already moved past, actually. You… you had a rough life-”

“I grew up rich, smart, and made myself into a billionaire. I’m sure I had a horrible life,” he says sarcastically. From what he’s gathered ‘charmed’ would be a massive understatement in describing how he lived.

“From the outside, yes,” T’Challa says quietly before looking down for a moment. When he looks back up he looks paler than he had before, “as a child, though, you suffered quite a lot of abuse at the hands of your father. You began to overcompensate for the abuse by distancing yourself from the possibility of any meaningful human connection in part because you had no clue how to make connections, but also because you felt you did not deserve them. That is probably what you saw,” he says. His voice shakes a little, like it hurt to talk about Tony’s past even though he obviously isn’t living that life anymore.

“So I had a crappy dad, that’s no excuse to be a jackass. Have you _heard_ the way I talked to women? I need a smack with a brick, seriously, why does Pepper like me?” She shouldn’t from what he’s seen, the nicest thing he spat out were cheesy pickup lines. Other than that it was all either ignoring people he supposedly slept with or loudly informing them that he didn’t remember them or care to. Why the hell anyone would want anything to do with him after all that he had no clue.

T’Challa makes a face, “you were an alcoholic for awhile. It did not make you a very good person, but you did learn better eventually. Though with your one-night stands you had issues with them expecting fame or money from attaching themselves to you, and you did the same with men. You were still an ass, just not necessarily in that particular situation. Pepper likes you because she sees who you actually are, not who you pretend to be. Think, Tony, if you were really the man you think you are than why be concerned about your actions at all? Amnesia doesn’t suddenly give you morals,” T’Challa points out.

He looks away because T’Challa has a point and he doesn’t have a proper counter argument. On the plus side, he guessed he learned a few things about himself. Apparently he had a bad childhood that fucked his brain before getting hit by a car did, and he was an alcoholic at some point. And at some point he decided he was an asshole too, “when did that happen?” Tony asks, “my deciding I was an ass that needs to change,” he clarifies.

“Just before we met,” T’Challa tells him, “come here.” He walks over to Tony’s computer- he _thinks_ given that it sure as hell didn’t look like a normal computer. T’Challa manages to bring up a keyboard that… wasn’t really a keyboard; it was more like a bunch of different symbols and stuff, and type something in. The air in front of him lights up with more of those hologram things and an image of himself pops up on screen. He looks battered, bruised, and his right arm is in a sling. The man beside him is bald and taller, broader, and for some reason he sets Tony on edge a little, like he was expecting the man to do something… awful or something.

“Your previous business partner, Obadiah Stane. He’s dead now,” T’Challa says softly before he lets the video play. Tony watches as he steps to the podium looking pale but determined. He wonders if that’s a common trait for him- determination.

He starts his speech with something about his father, spouting off information he doesn’t remember about him and weapons. He looks exhausted, more so than he does currently, as he goes on about whether or not Howard Stark had doubts or if he was always sure of himself. Something niggles at the back of Tony’s mind, a bitterness attached to Howard that tells him he had no faith that his father ever assumed anything he did was wrong. Harsh. The video continues with him telling his audience that he had become comfortable with a system that had no accountability and that that never should have happened. Then the video ends with him shutting down the weapons sector of his company- something he knew didn’t exist because he’s seen the paperwork lying around. According to his lingering designs he was interested in clean energy- quite the shift.

The video stops playing as the audience surges forward, but the camera happened to have a good view of his face. He was looking down at the audience from the podium, his resolve written clearly across his features. Whatever they were about to say he wasn’t going to listen to it, even with no memory of who he was of how he behaved he could see that the man in front of him had no interest in changing his mind. “How much of my business was weapons?” he asks. So he decided to stop making things that went boom, clearly it wouldn’t have made much of a difference if he decided to shut it down. He already knew what an asshole he was; one press conference of him acknowledging that he’s an ass hardly made him a better person.

“Nearly your entire business. You nearly lost everything but you didn’t let that stop you, even though your business partner tried rather hard to get you to change your mind,” T’Challa tells him. Tony gets an odd image of Obadiah leaning over him with a sharp grin on his face, looking like he won something. For some reason he feels a sharp pain in his chest despite nothing being physically wrong there. T’Challa’s eyes flick down to the affected area and Tony frowns, wondering how he knew that he felt a phantom pain there.

“Did I even know what I was doing? Because I look like I went through the ringer,” he says, nodding at the frozen image of himself in front of him. Despite looking like he went through hell and back he looked strong, surprisingly so.

T’Challa half smiles, “you are very impulsive, so no, you had no idea what you were doing, but you knew you were doing what was right. You may have spent a long portion of your life misguided, but when you were proved wrong you listen to that proof and try to do better. It took you a year to gain back everything you lost, and by the end of the second year you were back to being a billionaire. It has never mattered if you had a plan or not, you were never destined to do anything small,” T’Challa says. That pride is back in his voice, in the way he holds himself and looks at Tony. He can literally _feel_ the love coming from him and he wonders how in the hell he ever got so lucky when he apparently made an empire on blood money.

*

It hurts that Tony did not remember anything of their life together, but it was interesting to watch him relearn things. Technology hadn’t taken long to figure out and as much as it hurt watch his unfamiliarity with his own life, watching Tony rediscover his own inventions was something of a treat. He was particularly enthused with JARVIS, and then the discovery that he made all the reflective surfaces in the house computers, essentially, and that the work from his lab would follow him around through the house on the surfaces. Tony had commented that he must have been a workaholic, giving T’Challa a bit of a _look_ when he said it but T’Challa does not correct him. It was true, Tony did spend far too much time working but T’Challa would also never ask him to give up something as important to him as his engineering.

This is what he tells Tony. He knew that Tony did not find much redemption in what he found on the internet, but what the headlines and press conferences had to offer were not the real Tony Stark. There were times, even now, that T’Challa wondered if he really knew Tony. He was so closed off from everyone, so unwilling to share that sometimes when he did T’Challa would find an entirely new side of Tony that he had no idea existed. It happened rarely now- seven years was a long time to be married to someone, and they had been together for almost two years before that, but it had taken a long time for Tony to get truly comfortable. T’Challa did not mind, it was not as if Tony could simply let go of the thought processes that led him to think that way, even if it was sometimes irritating. Unfortunately, though, that anxiety around himself did not disappear with his memories.

The benefit to all of this, though, was that he knew things about Tony that Tony did not. Which meant that spoiling Tony was far easier than it was in the past. Bringing home random treats that Tony forgot about was his new favorite hobby because it always resulted in Tony being delighted with the new discovery. When he gets home he has Wakandan chocolate with him because Tony was rather fond of it and he would love a repeat of the first time Tony tried the chocolate. His eyes had near tripled in size before he managed to all but shove the rest of the box in his mouth. It had been amusing and T’Challa would be happy to see that again.

Tony greets him at the door; probably with a list of new things he discovered that day. It was their new routine and T’Challa was happy to listen as Tony relayed the information to him. Doing that required some measure of trust and T’Challa was pleased that Tony trusted him with the information specifically. “The good news is that I remembered some stuff, the bad news is that I could have went my whole life without remembering that time I was tortured in Afghanistan. Also I remembered Dummy’s code and it really outdated and now its bugging me,” Tony says, waving his hands around. His mind was clearly buzzing with ideas of how to update the bot, but T’Challa had no idea if he was remembering the original code or the updated code. Either way Tony would likely consider it outdated given how fast he improved on things.

“That… is unfortunate. I brought you chocolate,” he says, offering the box somewhat awkwardly as some sort of feel better gesture. Tony takes it, examining it closely like he was trying to remember what it was. He is unsuccessful, or at least T’Challa guesses he is considering he would have announced if he had remembered something. The benefits of being with someone who was hyper verbal about their opinions. Tony opens the box gingerly, sniffing at the chocolate there before removing one and sticking it in his mouth.

It was so worth the trouble of getting the damn chocolates into the country to see Tony’s eyes roll back as he let out an almost pornographic moan, “oh my god I think my mouth just had an orgasm,” he says, picking up another piece and putting it in his mouth. “This is what angels taste like. I don’t even believe angels are real but this is how they taste. Oh hey, I learned something new, I’m an atheist,” he says, putting another piece of chocolate in his mouth. T’Challa grins as Tony eats the chocolate, doing that squinty eye thing that cats did when they were pleased with something. “This is why I married you,” Tony tells him, his words somewhat garbled by the chocolate.

“One of the reasons, yes. Have you watched the wedding video?” he asks. T’Challa hadn’t much cared for the idea of filming everything but Tony had wanted the memory on film. Technology was so important to Tony that T’Challa could not say no, and Tony is a literal genius, he had not even noticed the cameras Tony set up. The end result was something that Tony had edited and put together. T’Challa had nearly cried in the office when Tony dropped in with it because the video was beautiful- a perfect image of who they were individually and as a couple.

“We have a wedding video?” Tony asks, eyes going wide again, “obviously we have a wedding video, I love tech. Obviously I’d film that. Where is it?”

*

Tony sits down with his computer to watch that wedding video while T’Challa went off to deal with some business call. Tony didn’t think he was the type to date a politician, especially given his very well documented suspicion of authority, but T’Challa was one of the few people he was actually comfortable around. So far his one call to the Board made him more nauseous than anything, Pepper had had to take over, and his conversations with near anyone else left him confused. One time this red head showed up out of nowhere and spent a solid ten minutes grilling him on his knowledge of some gnome or something. She left when it was pretty obvious he had _no clue_ what she was talking about.

He plays the video though; curious to see what his own wedding was like. Something extravagant and flashy if it was something he mostly wanted. T’Challa was far less… _out there_ than himself, so maybe it ended up being understated. When the video opens on some elaborately dressed ballroom he snorts. Looked like he won out on the decorations. The video, from what he knew of himself, was obviously edited by him because it leaned more towards the humorous than serious despite the seriousness of the event. It also featured way more of T’Challa than him.

In his Internet searches he hadn’t found a lot of T’Challa and himself, but T’Challa told him that was because they ran in different circles that happened to intersect sometimes. They were both busy doing events all the time, but they had different causes most of the time so they rarely went with each other. Tony tended to take Pepper and T’Challa was regal all on his own. Tony thought maybe T’Challa was covering some marriage troubles or something given that that was a reasonable, though somewhat implausible response. The marriage video, however, told him that he loved his husband very much even if it was only for the night he married the guy and when he edited the video.

He watches the video with a strange sort of awe and confusion at his own admittedly very beautiful wedding until the end. He almost puts sets the computer aside but something tells him to stay for a few seconds more. The video turns back on and Tony raises an eyebrow, wondering why this was cut off from the rest. When his own face pops onto the screen he settles in to watch whatever it was he was about to say.

“Look, future me, you better not fuck this up okay? I get it, you’re screwed up mentally and whatever but that is no excuse to go messing up the best thing that’s ever happened to you. So if at any point in the future you feel the need to run off and do something stupid so you can destroy your relationship because you had like five seconds of doubt at three a.m do not. And if you get like… an amnesia or something, lets be real Dummy does not pay attention to where your head is, it could happen, just remember that T’Challa saved your life. Hell, even if you don’t blow yourself up in the lab or get hit in the head by Dummy remember that. Remember tonight and how happy you are, maybe for the first time in your life. Okay, second time, the first time was that time I threw up on Rhodey on college and he didn’t hate me after. And T’Challa, if you’re watching this you were never meant to see this but lets be real, I’m a fucking idiot when I panic. I figured giving future me words of advice was needed. Also we’re never giving your sister tequila again, she’s making out with Rhodey in the closet.”

Tony stares at the screen for a moment, remembering the cool wind through his hair as he made the video. He had made it because that morning he had debated on bolting until Rhodey talked him down with a little help from Pepper. He hadn’t wanted future him to be so rash in his decision making. Something told Tony it didn’t work, but he stayed with T’Challa anyways.

When T’Challa walks back into the room Tony sets the computer aside and throws himself into T’Challa’s arms. He remembered the feeling he had the night they got married, and he knew nothing on T’Challa’s end had changed any. Throughout this whole thing he’s been nothing but supportive, and even when Tony doubted himself he could feel T’Challa’s love for him, _see_ it in the way he held himself. “I don’t know how I got so lucky, but you are the best thing that has ever happened to me,” Tony tells him.

T’Challa wraps his arms around Tony, “you are the best thing that has happened to me too,” he says, pressing a kiss to the top of Tony’s head.

*

The memories start coming back pretty quickly after that, though there were some things he wished he had never remembered. Like that time he and Nat got food poisoning and turned that McDonald’s bathroom into a biohazard zone. Most of it was useful information though, like the numbers that kept buzzing around in his head were new ideas for an updated version of arc reactor technology.

So far his favorite recovered memory was a vacation- he thinks- to Wakanda he went on with T’Challa. He had fallen asleep in one of the pavilions outside of T’Challa’s massive home because apparently T’Challa was a fucking _prince_ (!!!), but when he woke up due to being over heated he found a _panther_ asleep on him. Barely resisting the urge to panic he called T’Challa to come save him from the large jungle cat only to get a blasé ‘oh they do that all the time’ response. He had fallen asleep and woke up with a _jungle cat_ on him only to have his fiancé tell him that panthers sleeping on people was _normal_ in Wakanda. He refused to go outside for nearly the rest of the week even though the panther had woken up eventually, licked his head, and walked off without trying to kill him or maim him in any way. T’Challa told him he was dramatic and he told T’Challa in America jungle cats didn’t sleep on people, they ate them.

“So, your memories are coming back? Anything fun you remember?” Rhodey asks, grinning into his drink. He had brought some pretty girl along with him but she seemed more content to stay silent for now. Tony wondered if he knew her, she seemed kind of familiar but… who knew.

“I remember one time in college we got really drunk and for some reason I woke up out side with toilet paper wrapped around my leg and a sapling with you sleeping on my inner thigh. Everyone was convinced we were gay but they were too scared to be homophobic because I recently set loose fifty tarantulas in Justin Hammer’s dorm room. I guess people really don’t like spiders,” he says. Personally he thought they were cute, but alright.

“That’s because bugs are the devil,” Rhodey says, shuddering.

“Oh shush, they are not that bad,” his companion says, giving him a look that, for some reason, sort of reminded him of T’Challa. It wasn’t like they looked much alike so he didn’t get the connection.

“They are so, I don’t know why you like bugs. They need to go to hell,” Rhodey hisses. Tony remembers, sort of, an incident in which someone threw a bug at Rhodey in college but mostly he remembered the loud shriek Rhodey released as he jumped up and ran off. He snickers and Rhodey glares at him. “Who cares bout bugs, how’s T’Challa?” he asks, changing the subject.

“Great,” Tony says, “he is so sweet. Seriously, back when I couldn’t remember shit he brought me home all these little gifts and stuff. Only they gifts were references to past dates we had. So he brought me home soup once, but it was from the place we went on our third date. And he brought home red roses because on our fifth date we went to some garden and I tripped and almost fell in a bush of red roses. The old lady that was close to us was horrified and we ended up making something of a joke of it. And he brought home Wakandan chocolate, which we had after-” he stops for a moment, looks at Rhodey’s companion before deciding his pause was stupid and unwarranted, “the first time we had sex,” he finishes. “Isn’t that sweet? It was like he gave me all these cute new memories of our dates that were extra adorable when I actually remembered the dates. I married the right guy.”

“That is very sweet, Rhodey, perhaps you should take notes,” Rhodey’s companion says, raising her eyebrow at him.

Rhodey sighs, “couldn’t you just let that go?” he asks.

“No, when is the last time you romanced me? If my brother could romance what was essentially a virtual stranger with very cute references to past dates so that Tony would have _two_ memories of their life together you can throw together one half decent memory for me,” she says. Brother? T’Challa had siblings?

“Oh god, I remember you now, we met when you walked in on T’Challa and I in the middle of sex. I could have went without ever remembering that, why does my brain feel the need to make me feel embarrassed twice over?” he asks more to himself than Rhodey and… Shuri! That was her name!

“You could have kept that to yourself, I did not need that mental image to scar my brain again. Please refrain from doing that to me again,” she says, wrinkling her nose.

“Hey!” someone yells from behind them. They all turn to find Natasha headed towards them, “I heard you have your memories back, where’s the gnome?” she asks, stopping in front of him and huffing for breath like she ran here or something. Given how interested she was in the gnome the last time they had this conversation she might have.

“No clue. But I do remember that one time we got food poisoning and made that poor McDonald’s worker cry our shit smelled so bad,” he says. Shuri snickers as Rhodey wrinkles his nose.

“Fuck you for remembering that and not the gnome,” she says and walks off.

“Anyone know what’s up with this damn gnome?” he asks.

“There was a bet with Clint and somehow it involved a gnome, you, fifty thousand dollars, and T’Challa’s boxers. I have no clue what any of this means and when you remember please do not inform me,” Rhodey says. Tony shakes his head, deciding that he was a freaking mystery even if he had a lot of his memories back now.

**Author's Note:**

> [My writing Tumblr](https://tenspencerriedplease.tumblr.com/)


End file.
